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Copyright Office Ruling Imposes Sweeping Right to Repair Reforms

ifixit.org

171–180 of 354 posts

Re: Copyright Office Ruling Imposes Sweeping Right to Repair Reforms

#171
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With a raspberry pi and a bit of python however you can reset this tamper code once the whole assembly is closed. This sentence is interesting to me. It tells me that now mechanics need to learn programming skills to be successful. Software really is eating the world...

I'm a biolermaker ¹ with 20 years experience in the trade. Now I operate a laser cutter, have a fairly extensive AutoHotKey script, can navigate my way around the post processor that generates the particular dialect of G-Code our laser prefers, and know a touch of python. I'm definitely an outlier, but I'm not the only computer-nerd-come-metal-fabricator I've worked with. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boilermaker

I got serious enough about metalwork to start buying machines about three years ago, but became interested in such things helping a friend who bought a used CNC wood router on a bit of a lark. Spent about a month generating gcode in Perl, and then decided to learn how to use Inventor.

And now I have several machines that one generally doesn't find in a second-story urban walkup. (Getting a 400-ish-pound lathe up the steps was how I found my limit there.)

Re: Copyright Office Ruling Imposes Sweeping Right to Repair Reforms

#172
post #160

This sounds like a niche for a small Pacific island. Islands like Jersey and the Cook Islands tailor their legal systems to cater for those who want a looser financial system. A small state could tailor their laws for those who want to repair things and potentially make a very nice "high tech" economy out of reverse engineering, importing broken stuff and exporting fixed stuff. Copyright holders might try and block a…

Give me a place with good reverse engineering/copyright laws, legal medical cannabis (long story) and I'll move tomorrow (if only)

Re: Copyright Office Ruling Imposes Sweeping Right to Repair Reforms

#174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tesla set up DRM to artificially limit the driving range of their cars until you pay them a ransom to simply let your car drive longer distances! That's a lie. Yes they have DRM in place to artificially limit the range of certain models, everything else you said is mischaracterization, misrepresentation, and lies. They saw opportunity in offering different ranged batteries of the same model, however the cost to pro…

How would you feel about a regular petrol car having extended range as an option, but you knew the shorter range model had exactly the same tank but the fuel gauge was calibrated differently, and the fuel pump stopped pumping before the tank was really empty.

The differentiator the consumer is paying for is range, not # of cells in the battery.

If you buy a 2ghz CPU and it turns out it can run at 2.5ghz but is locked at 2ghz, are you being cheated or getting what you paid for?

Re: Copyright Office Ruling Imposes Sweeping Right to Repair Reforms

#175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't want a DIY arduino-hacked ... This is a professional service being done by the same professionals who you're paying to actually replace the suspension, brakes, brake lines, or other life-critical components. If you can't trust them to make a good judgement on how or whether to reset tamper detection, then how can you trust them to replace your brakes or suspension in the first place? Surely the idea is that…

He has a point though... Cars are manufactured in such way that when something fails, the failure is not catastrophic. Car might not be operational, but it is very rare that malfunction causes a crash. With SW I'm not convinced that the same can be accomplished. If you add 3rd party maintainers to the mix, it gets even worse. I still think the right to repair is worth the risk, just pointing out that it's not so clea…

I think your and OPs logic has a fatal assumption: that the quality of work done by a mechanic for a fix is worse than the manufacturer's replacement.

There is a possibility of failure in either one, right? It's people doing the work either way.

Re: Copyright Office Ruling Imposes Sweeping Right to Repair Reforms

#176
post #160

This sounds like a niche for a small Pacific island. Islands like Jersey and the Cook Islands tailor their legal systems to cater for those who want a looser financial system. A small state could tailor their laws for those who want to repair things and potentially make a very nice "high tech" economy out of reverse engineering, importing broken stuff and exporting fixed stuff. Copyright holders might try and block a…

A tribal nation makes more sense for the US market.

>Copyright holders might try and block an import, but they would be fighting a harder battle against "parallel import" laws.

They can claim that it's counterfeit, have customs seize it, then force you to file legal action to reclaim your property. Not really the best place to be TBH.

Re: Copyright Office Ruling Imposes Sweeping Right to Repair Reforms

#177
post #160

This sounds like a niche for a small Pacific island. Islands like Jersey and the Cook Islands tailor their legal systems to cater for those who want a looser financial system. A small state could tailor their laws for those who want to repair things and potentially make a very nice "high tech" economy out of reverse engineering, importing broken stuff and exporting fixed stuff. Copyright holders might try and block a…

Apple already has some sort of sweetheart deal with US Customs that gets Apple parts shipped from China rejected at import time unless they're part of an Apple-tracked shipment. This blocks devices have been third-party-repaired in China from being re-imported; but also blocks "ghost-shift" (but otherwise first-party!) Apple parts from coming into the country. Literally, anything that looks like an Apple part, but isn't an Apple part according to Apple, gets blocked. Think about the implications of that.

If you can't even import a real part into the US from the very same Chinese factory that the "officially-supplied" parts would be shipped from, then I doubt you'll be able to import those parts from the Cook Islands.

Re: Copyright Office Ruling Imposes Sweeping Right to Repair Reforms

#178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tesla set up DRM to artificially limit the driving range of their cars until you pay them a ransom to simply let your car drive longer distances! That's a lie. Yes they have DRM in place to artificially limit the range of certain models, everything else you said is mischaracterization, misrepresentation, and lies. They saw opportunity in offering different ranged batteries of the same model, however the cost to pro…

For some reason I can appreciate the adaptive cruise control being an optional extra, as they've had to build and maintain the software for it. The battery / range thing no so much.

If half your potential customers are unwilling to pay for a higher range option but will purchase a lower range model for a reduced price that still nets a profit for the same fixed battery cost, what do you do?

Offer a lower range option.

If the cost of retooling a line to make 2 battery types, or setting up a new line from scratch results in a greater cost per unit, regardless of capacity, than 1 line producing the single high capacity battery then why make two battery types?

Are you saying they should just offer only the higher capacity battery at a lower price or just tell the lower range customers to fuck off with their money?

What if you could satisfy both potential customers and offer the lower range customers the option to upgrade in the future at a cost lower than replacement of the whole battery?

What if you could also offer them a good will gesture of added range if they're fleeing natural disasters?

Is that ransom?

Would you be outraged to discover your printer's print speed was artificially capped to not erode the market for a faster model?

Or that your CPU wasn't running at it's maximum potential?

Does it only become outrageous or random when the manufacturer offers you the option to unlock it's full potential?

What about Labor? If you pay a yard service $50 to clean your property and they do it in 4 hours but your neighbor, with a 2x larger yard pays $75 and they still complete the work in 4 hours. Do you demand a lower rate? Faster service? Both?

The fact of the matter is if you paid for 100kwh battery and they give you a 120kwh battery that will only put out 100kwh are you being cheated or held at ransom? Or are you just getting what you paid for?

Why are you entitled to get anything more than what you agree to buy?

Re: Copyright Office Ruling Imposes Sweeping Right to Repair Reforms

#179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tesla set up DRM to artificially limit the driving range of their cars until you pay them a ransom to simply let your car drive longer distances! That's a lie. Yes they have DRM in place to artificially limit the range of certain models, everything else you said is mischaracterization, misrepresentation, and lies. They saw opportunity in offering different ranged batteries of the same model, however the cost to pro…

So, you agree with everything quadrangle said, and that means he's lying?

It's not ransom, it's giving the customer what requested at the price they agreed to pay. And the added bonus of a cheaper than replacing the whole battery upgrade option in the future.

They didn't sell them a 300 mile range then knock it down to 250 when they rolled off the lot. They didn't send them a letter saying "if you want your range back send $$$ by 10pm tomorrow."

The customer paid for 250 miles, they provided a car that could go 250 miles and additionally said "if you would like to upgrade to 300 miles we can do that for less than the cost of a full battery replacement."

Re: Copyright Office Ruling Imposes Sweeping Right to Repair Reforms

#180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tesla set up DRM to artificially limit the driving range of their cars until you pay them a ransom to simply let your car drive longer distances! That's a lie. Yes they have DRM in place to artificially limit the range of certain models, everything else you said is mischaracterization, misrepresentation, and lies. They saw opportunity in offering different ranged batteries of the same model, however the cost to pro…

What you wrote basically confirms what GP said, you are just judging it differently.

The behavior isn't ransom. The customer didn't buy a 100kwh battery and only received 80kwh. They never had a 300 mile range and they didn't suddenly lose 50 miles of range unless they paid extra.

They received the performance they paid for and the option to increase that performance for a cost less than full replacement of the battery.

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